Jamie Goode: Is wine really too complicated – or just too expensive?

There’s quite a lot of discussion about the role of education in the wine world at the moment.

Wine education is a thriving business. There seems to be a hunger out there for learning about wine, and in the process amassing credentials. There are the excellent programs offered by the Wine and Spirit Education Trust, and also the innovative options from the Wine Scholar Guild. Then we have the various sommelier accreditations, with the most well-known being the programs offered by the Court of Master Sommeliers.

And, to cap it all, if you get to the top of the tree, then we have the examining body the Institute of Masters of Wine, who don’t offer education, but have a rigorous examination that, if you pass, allows you to use the title MW, on payment of the annual subscription fee. For sommeliers, there’s the notoriously tough MS examination that also allows you to clime the summit of education and stick two letters after your name.

The gaining of expertise and the associated accreditation is understandable for those who work in the wine trade or in hospitality. You need to know what you are talking about, and these pieces of paper or letters after your name help potential employers assess your product knowledge.

But in recent years there has been a trend for those not working in the industry to pursue wine qualifications. Those with the means have spent time collecting accreditations: it’s seen as a challenge. Wine exam junkies are all over the place, studying for one certification after another. Bizarrely, we find non-sommeliers taking sommelier exams. I guess, if you’ve nothing else to do, nailing the WSET diploma and then having a crack at the MW is quite fun: it directs your drinking, you get to meet interesting people, and some people who are good at exams get a buzz from studying. As long as you can afford it, why not?

With the extended reach of wine qualifications, there’s been some discussion about whether this is entirely a good thing. Aren’t we risking alienation of new consumers by emphasizing the complexity of wine, and suggesting that to really enjoy the glass in front of you, you should do some exams? Is the obsession with learning stuff about wine at the expense of actually enjoying it? Has the obsession with learning about wine begun to crowd out the simple pleasure of drinking it? Are we creating baggage that will, in the end, backfire and put people off?

These are good questions, and wine is certainly facing a bit of a crisis at the moment. People are drinking less. There’s a worry that younger drinkers, in particular, aren’t embracing wine in a way that their equivalents from earlier generations did. Could this be because we’ve made it all so complicated? Do we need to re-think wine education?

Complexity isn’t the real problem

I don’t have all the answers, but I think we should pause before we panic too much.

First of all, wine is very complicated. Someone recently sent me an A4 sheet of the exhibitors at one of the Loire Valley natural wine events this month, asking me who they should go and taste with. I recognized just a few on this list, which covers all regions of France. Most of the names were unfamiliar, and I follow natural wine quite closely. There are just so many producers out there, and even as a wine professional when I sit down with a wine list there are often lots of names I don’t recognize, and I drink, taste and travel very widely.

I don’t think we can eliminate the complexity of wine without killing what makes it interesting. Interesting wine is often made at the scale of what one family can manage, or one family with a group of employees working with them. The production base is highly fragmented.

If we are to be useful as wine professionals, we need to learn. I’m not only talking about book knowledge, but also about experience. And we need to couple our learning with understanding.

For consumers, learning can enhance enjoyment. As a 20-something novice who’d caught the wine bug, I devoured sources of wine knowledge with glee. I got online and learned about wine from people much further in their journey than me. I went to tastings, and began visiting vineyards. It was tremendous fun.

But I’m aware that learning isn’t for everyone, and for many consumers wine is just wine. They want something to drink that tastes nice and doesn’t cost too much. They don’t need lots of information. I used to run quite a lot of consumer tastings in village halls or for company events, and I found that most consumers are keen to try wines, and listen to what you have to say about them, but there’s no way they are going to read about wine. It’s far too abstract. It’s like cars: many people like cars, and enjoy driving, but they don’t buy car magazines. Most people who use a camera don’t buy camera magazines. There’s a difference between a user and a hobbyist, and this is why it’s really important to segment the market appropriately.

So wine is complicated, and it always will be, but most of that complexity is hidden to normal people – the low-involvement consumer. They encounter the complexity of wine in a supermarket, with the wall of bottles. They encounter it in many wine lists. But they seem to navigate it fine. If they didn’t, then restaurants, wine shops and supermarkets wouldn’t be selling wine effectively, and they’d be forced to change. Every now and then some bright spark thinks that they need to simplify things, for example by having a smaller, more carefully chosen selection. But they soon realise that consumers don’t trust a retailer who is selling just a few wines. They like the broad choice, even if that choice is to some extent illusory. Have you ever stood in front of the toothpaste aisle in a supermarket? So many choices, and all of them make the same claim. But if there was just one brand of toothpaste, you might not trust that retail outlet as a sound source of toothpaste, and be inclined to shop elsewhere.

So, back to wine education. Will it scare consumers off? Probably not. It largely operates out of sight, and you’ll only encounter it if you actively go looking for it. From within the wine “industry” we see things in a particular way, but to outsiders wine presents very differently. The danger lies in projecting our own assumptions onto others, who may experience and understand wine in a manner largely disconnected from our internal debates..

I’d argue that the most (only?) intimidating aspect of wine for category newcomers is its price. Wine is getting more expensive, while disposable income, squeezed by rising living costs, is declining. What’s needed is better wine that’s affordable and easy to find. That’s what will bring new people in. And for those who want to study wine? Good for them.

• Jamie Goode is a London-based wine writer, lecturer, wine judge and book author. With a PhD in plant biology, he worked as a science editor, before starting wineanorak.com, one of the world’s most popular wine websites.